My Childhood Memories of Thanksgiving

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I just finished reading an article in Guideposts about the memories of the author’s Thanksgivings while she was growing up. It reminded me how special my memories are to me of my childhood Thanksgivings.

We ALWAYS went down to “Philadelphia” for Thanksgiving. My mother and father and I would pile into the car and drive down to Aunt Gladys and Uncle Ben’s on Thanksgiving Day. My childhood memories are most vivid when they lived in the old parsonage in Lima. Then they moved into the new parsonage that was built at the same church. In my later teenage years, Uncle Ben was transferred to Reading where the parsonage was a large modern house that had been built by musicians.

Some years, my father and I would then go to Norristown to watch the traditional football game between Norristown and Upper Merion (the high school from which he graduated). After the game, we’d return to Aunt Gladys and Uncle Ben’s place (the parsonage in Lima) to join the rest of the “clan,” as Uncle Ben used to later call it.

It was always a large family gathering: my Aunt Dot (Shoffner) and Uncle Sam Park, Aunt Edith (Shoffner) Cook (Uncle Walter died in 1962) and Phyllis, Aunt Mary Shoffner (Uncle Harold died in 1960) and George and Patty, Aunt Gladys (Shoffner) and Uncle Ben Gould with their three children Bev, Judy, and Steve, and of course my parents and me.

For Thanksgiving dinner, smaller tables were set up for the kids in an adjacent room to the dining room where the adults ate. The kids were my cousins Steve and Judy Gould, George and Patty Shoffner, and Phyllis Cook. Bev Gould was old enough to eat with the adults.

I always felt a bit uncomfortable in such a large gathering, but I was grateful that the focus of attention was usually on my father, who was the “life of the party.” The elders would tell the same old stories of years ago, and we’d all laugh as the stories became more embellished each year.

I never thought about all of the work that went into the preparation and serving of the food; Aunt Gladys was an amazing host and cook as she took it all in stride being the perfect pastor’s wife and made it all look so easy. Although I felt “nervous” at times (probably because I put my elders up on a pedestal and always cared TOO much about what they thought of me), it was easy to feel the FAMILY LOVE when we were together.

Steve and I, (and George before Aunt Mary eventually stopped coming to the family get-togethers) would then go outside to play. We’d pass the football around. I always looked forward to when Uncle Ben would come out (the only adult to ever do so) and join us, passing the football to Steve and me.

When we got older, and after Uncle Ben was transferred to Reading, Steve and I would always find things to do together inside. When it was time to go, when my parents would first say we were going to go home, Steve and I knew we had at least another hour to play.

Although Steve and I only saw each other a few times a year (always on Thanksgiving and Christmas and maybe one or two other times when my parents and I would visit them), each time we got together, it was like no time had passed. We had the same values and interests and ALWAYS had a good time together. I always wished that we lived closer so that we could share more time together.

Thanksgiving Day was when the extended family gathered together, feasted, laughed, joked, and reconnected in the warmth of family. It was precious time.
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